Starlight in Daden Ekova: Heaven's Dust Fantastic 'ethnic' music of the Dead Can Dance variety, but with a more Middle Eastern slant. Great to dance to. (*****)
Beyond Raging Waves DJ Krush: Jaku Oo, should be a soundtrack! There are flying decks, a bit of rap, traditional koto, some gorgeous piano and strings...love it. Definitely in my top 5 Krush. (*****)
Dirty Larry Dimitri From Paris: Sacrebleu! (box set import edition) Parisian Loungecore - like DJ Krush's Ki-Oku, this cd is perfect for an evening with friends, a sophisticated cocktail party, and general housework. I guarantee you will be dancing. (*****)
Toh-Sui DJ Krush: Ki-Oku Acid Jazz from brilliant Japanese turntablist DJ Krush and world reknowned trumpeter Toshinori Kondo. Ab-fab. Try 'Zen' for a full look at Krush's talents, from rap, trip-hop, acid jazz, drum 'n' bass as well as modern dance. (*****)
Kodomotachi Susumu Yokota: Sakura Sublime ambient music for the times when you really, really, really need to relax, but without being Eno-esque or 'wacky'. (*****)
I've had to unsubscribe from a few blogs for reasons only other dialup users will understand. So, although I'd like to keep up with your stories, it's just not possible for probably forever. I love living in the country, but the lack of broadband sucketh.
Oro
ETA: the little so and so's weren't exactly waiting for me on Monday, after I started hanging my first load of laundry. No, they weren't waiting, but they started flying in fast and furious.
From Monday to Thursday, the following have appeared:
Mourning Dove Blue Jay Chickadee Striped Sparrow Song (?) Sparrow that other Sparrow that I confuse with the other two Dark Eyed Junco Common Grackle Red Wing Blackbird Cardinal (the nesting pair) A Very Large Crow
This is the post I was talking about some time ago, the one about pregnancy and birth and first time parenting when infertile. Be warned, metaphors abound. And some other random stuff.
I had a dream last night, I can't remember the majority of it, but while watching this video (a bit of the old ultraviolence) I realized that I'd dreamed about checking into an old fashioned hotel in Boston, and while going up to my room on the second of three floors, I somehow lost my luggage. This was very important as it had my fertility meds in it, and I was going to a doctor's appointment the next day. Panic ensued, with me running around the halls, trying to find my luggage with the 100 needles and bottle of something (it was large, and sodium light orange, and I had to take 101mg (mg?!) of it a day before my appointment). Anyway, I eventually found my zipped, pencil case bag of meds in my purse, which had miraculously appeared in my right hand.
Mr Oro and I went home yesterday after wintering at my mother's house. The plan is too move back there today, now that my car's brakes have been replaced. I put heaps of milk in the freezer and then decided to check on the state of the meds I had left over from last June. It's all out of date, now. I'd hoped to be able to use some of them next year. The red sharps container I bought with my trigger shot sits on top of the refrigerator, the real, shockingly physical reference to my infertility a reminder that even though The Chieftain is here, living and breathing, that without the aid of Science and a lot of luck, my life would be very different, now. When I look at it, I literally feel pain, an inner blow as if I've actually been punched in the gut...it's hard to explain. Maybe I should have kept all my needles in that empty mayonnaise jar after all.
So here I am, nearly 9 years after we started trying to have a baby, sitting in bed, typing on my laptop while my two month old son sleeps next to me. To say this is at times surreal is an understatement. It feels like he's always been here, yet this is clearly far from the case.
I understand, now, the difference. A living, breathing child blunts the sharpness of infertility while at the same time honing its edge to cut a little deeper. If you've ever thought there's a difference between primary and secondary infertility, oh yes, yes there is. Primary infertility reminds me of getting stabbed. From what I've read, you can be stabbed yet not know it for a little while. You feel a blow, as if someone's bumped in to you while walking down the street, and it's only some time later that you start to feel dizzy, maybe notice the itch of the blood trickling down your side, before looking down to see the sticky red on your fingers.
And then you realize what's happened and your entire world falls apart.
I began planning when I was going to have my FET before I was six weeks pregnant. I had yet to experience any bleeding, although the late-onset OHSS which had me in the hospital for a week was worrisome, and having read so many blogs, knew that miscarriage was the likely end to my dreams. I flinch even to write that word, now, isn't that funny?
So now I am one of the dream people, I got pregnant on my first and only treatment, my very first IVF cycle. For which 'gratitude' is not the appropriate word. I would gladly prostrate myself before any deity with tears of thanks streaming down my face, set out offerings of incense (and peppermints), et cetera, et cetera. Still wouldn't be enough. Yet one must continue on with the living, afterwards, despite the fears of this somehow being a dream.
And fear does linger. One of infertility's most insidious gifts. You find yourself pulling away from the miscarriage blogs, from, gods forbid, the stillbirth blogs and, even more horrific, the neo-natal death blogs, where all of your worst fears have come true. For someone. Who is not you. You hope and pray to be one of the millions of parents whose babies are happy and healthy and grow up to adulthood. Of course, recognizing that most people, infertile or not, hope the same, is of no help whatsoever. Because you've been through the hell of infertility, and even though you are now off Infertility Island, you can't help but look back from the Mainland, terrified to return yet frightened of moving further inshore.
The wound from the stabbing of Primary infertility may have healed over, but the scar tissue can be thick, so thick it unexpectedly pulls and hurts when you move in certain ways. Secondary infertility is painful, sharp little papercuts when you least expect it. You'd think the skin would heal quickly, but no.
Here I am, the dream achieved. This world is still strange and new. I expect I'll get used to the fear as any other parent does, and even, to some degree, forget about the infertility. An odd concept. Forget about the main issue of my life for the past 9 years? How is that even possible?
It's true, what they say about childbirth (unless it's been hellashiously traumatic), you do forget about the pain (not that much pain, in my case, but I had an emergency c-section) due to the newness of a baby who suddenly requires all your attention distracts you from what you've just been through (unless you've had a c-section, in which case you're dealing with the after affects of major abdominal surgery)(which is shocking in and of itself). Am I willing to go through it all again, hell yeah.
But I'm terrified of going through pregnancy again. I am scared of miscarrying, of stillbirth. I'm scared of having to have another c-section, as the local hospital doesn't do VBAC, which means a 1-3 hour drive during labor, and staying in a hotel if we're told it's too early. Assuming, of course, I even get pregnant again.
Anyway, life, pregnancy and birth post-Primary infertility is pretty much everything you think it is. The things you don't expect, however, include depression, your baby doing weird things like breathing funny, physical pain from pregnancy/childbirth, recovery from surgery, and honestly? Trauma from infertility. I don't think we truly realize how much it affects us until after that baby arrives - regardless of arrival, via pregnancy, adoption, surrogacy, fostering.
There isn't really a point to this post, it's just one long ramble. I'm sure I've missed things I really wanted to talk about, but I got distracted. Also, I'm quite depressed, very tired, and not looking forward to the Chieftain getting all screamy when he gets his first vaccinations in a couple of hours. From there, I've got another 'appointment' between 1 and 5 pm, then packing, shopping, and moving back home. In the midst of all of that comes pumping every 4 hours, as the Chieftain has never gotten the hang of feeding from the breast. Oh, he'll do it occasionally, but it's a struggle, and both of us get frustrated and occasionally teary, so pumping it is for the foreseeable future.
So much to do and I'm going to be one doing most of it. Throw in some serious stress over money, my search for a part time job knowing that at minimum wage, at least 1/3 of my weekly pay is going to be spent on gas traveling to and from said job...
...I'm a mess.
Also, I'll be back on dialup as of tonight, so no more YouTubery unless I stop at home for a few hours, so my blogwhoring posts will be even more linky, but with very few photo or music or cool stuff posts.
I guess that's me.
~*~
Here's a random video, an oldie by the Chemical Brothers, The Golden Path:
I can't resist Believe, which is, hands down, one of the most disturbing videos EVER. It's like the Dr Who episode, Blink - you just can't look at machinery in the same way again. Creepy:
If you can deal the Laughter of Babies is also funny. Except for the last one, which is funny and a little Village of the Damned.
Oro out.
PS: So, the dvd cover of the movie The Orphanage quotes some guy who says "It's this year's Pan's Labyrinth!" If you're wondering, that means it's really creepy, sad, and depressing, even with the 'upbeat' ending. It's good, but consider yourself Warned.
Before I forget, now that I'm hooked on Friday Night Lights, of course the video store doesn't have season 2. So I tried Prison Break, but it was too silly. Then I watched Hustle, a great British show w/ Adrian Lester and Robert Vaughn (trust me, it's fab and funny), and, because I'm apparently a masochist with the watching of tv shows that haven't finished their run on tv, rented The Unit, which is also turning out to be another great show that nobody watches. Oh, and I finished Rome, which made me cry in the last episode. I think I need to own I, Claudius now. But, dare I blow $50 when I don't have a job and my car needs repairs to its brakes? Hmm...maybe I'll wait until I know how much that's going to cost before I hit ebay...
Seeing as I have a few free minutes [it only took 3 hours...], I'm going to attempt to blogwhore. Oh good gods this is going to be a long post. Unless, of course, I find lots of links that no longer work (NYT, I'm talking to you) or are completely out of date...
~*~
DD: Yeah, I'm going to work through it on my own. Unless, of course, I start having Bad Thought of the Andrea Yates variety. Support from family is not forthcoming, so, y'know. And I just reapplied for Medicaid (I did mention I finally got on Medicaid, right?)(oh, and I got a $1500 refund from my OB and paid off the remaining $722.19 that I owed from one of my hospital bills from July '07, woot! Which leaves $1000 remaining from my July ER visit...)
MsP: oh yes, poor Duffy. Funnily enough, Mercy is the song I listen to the least. Also, I love Moloko, Portishead, not so much. I try and mix up the music, but sometimes all I can do is wallow. I have decided that Putumayo's Acoustic Brazil cd is a little too lounge-y in parts, a little too cool, a little too Girl From Ipanema (and here's where I must recommend the fabulous movie, Deep Rising. It's gloriously silly. Not as good as Tremors, but definitely up there! Besides, the Girl From Ipanema moment still makes me laugh)
~*~
I walked the dog with my mom yesterday at the oldest cemetary in town. Normally I love going to cemetaries, checking out the fashions in headstones, looking at the most popular names, reading the details of the deaths, making rubbings. Frex, at the cemetary near by, there's a dual grave with dual slate headstones from either the late 1700's or the early 1800's. The story, as written on the headstones, is very moving, for on a hot summer's day, two boys, the best of friends, one 17, the other 16 or so, went swimming in the big river that flows past town (three rivers run through town). The river is deceptively slow, and one of the boys got in trouble. The other tried to rescue him, resulting in both of their deaths. And so their families buried them together, and wrote of the friendship and deep love for one another, ending with the hope that they were in heaven together, doing all the things they loved to do. Like I said, very moving.
Anyway, what I'd forgotten, what I'd always found so sad, are the early graves, the family graves. It's not just Eliza, Wife of Erasmus, but Elizabeth, 1820-1821, Adam, 1826, and the simple Baby, 1829. Jean and Joan, 1831
There were too many tiny headstones with Baby listed on the top. There was one grave with three children in it, all under two years old. We take for granted (well, not necessarily us infertiles, but most fertiles in general) the advances in modern medicine. Most babies in the Western world don't die from getting a cold, or malnutrition because their family's run out of food or wood or coal in spring.
And then I think of my childhood and life in our one room, tar paper shack cabin*, and of how when I was 5, drifting in and out of delirium from pneumonia, how mom's friend P went out in the middle of a violent thunder storm to chop down a nearby birch for the stove because we were out of wood, and now how frequently the power goes out at my house and how we can't stay there next winter without a wood stove because there's no way we can deal (well we can, but I really don't want to and dammit, shouldn't have to) with no power when it's -25F/-32C outside, and sure, I've got a gas top stove, great for soup and tea, but let me assure you that even with the new, thicker insulation and dual pane windows, the house gets damned cold in such weather, but my point is that even with vaccinations and a decent roof over our heads, how easy it would be for the Chieftain and so many other babies to die.
Maybe that's a long stretch of the imagination, yet those gravestones are there for a reason. So I was a little depressed from that by the time we got home. The food situation has not improved, either, which is far from helpful.
~*~
Anyway, it's time to blogwhore.
HEALTH:
Good Fatty, Bad Fatty - eating disordered and fat, great article no matter your size, don't forget the comments
Remember This - I'm intrigued...hope I remember the article!
Why Don't Fat Women Get Checked? - for cancer of the nasty bits? For the same reason I steel myself before going to any doctor, telling myself that I don't give a rat's patootie what they think me so long as they treat me.
BPA News: Hey, Canada's just banned it, isn't that good enough?
A Million To One - yeah, what the article doesn't talk about is how differently these kids are going to be treated, or how it's going to affect their relationship to one another. There was a program about this in twins in the UK before I left, and what was truly sad was how most of the twins resented one another, the black twin resenting the white twin's privilige, the white twin resenting the black twin's resentment, etc, etc.
The Real Problem With Single Parents - honestly, why didn't Slate just title it 'Single Women With Children Must Be Punished For Their Transgressions Against Teh Menz'.
The Ghost of Bobby Dunbar - amazing story from NPR's This Modern Life. Very highly recommended. (free download, ws, although why you'd listen to it at work I don't know)
Armenia: The Epic Land (photo heavy) - remember watching LOTR and thinking to yourself that before you died you had to visit New Zealand? Yeah, well, now I feel that way about Armenia, too. If you're on dialup or have limited time, here's one example of the pics. And another.
I'm sorry, but I have to post this here. Stuff White People Like has a lot to answer for. Also, doesn't this guy look like he belongs to the New Kids On The Block? He certainly dances like he should...
~*~
Oro out.
* when I find the pics of the cabin I grew up in I will scan and post them.
So Richard Quest, the ridiculously perky (and now we know why!) and uber-tanned financial Brit with the brilliant white teeth who was one of CNN's financial reporters, was arrested in Central Park with a sex toy in his boot, a rope leading from his neck to his genitals, and a small bag of crystal meth in his pocket. Here is a flowchart of his possible thought process on that night.
Funny as hell.
Oro, feeling somewhat better despite the nightmares and dreams of loneliness and death (because what would a nap be without either of those?)
But CNN is losing cred with each passing day. Remember when they just reported the news? Now even HNN presenters have to have opinions and be all Glenn Beck-like. Please. I hate Glenn Beck. Also, I don't care about their opinions.
Dear PBS,
Please play BBC World News nightly at, say, 7PM.
Yours,
Not Fond Of Punditry (unless it's Stephen Colbert)
~*~
Eye infection. Ow. And migraines. And a cavity. And a pinched nerve in the leg. And now, my foot is going numb.
That's how tired I am at the moment. Mr Oro is ill (dude, it's been over a month!) and currently in bed with...? Me, I've been up since 5:30AM.
What should I watch next (suggestions appreciated):
Finished: The Wire season 4, Battlestar Galactica Season 2 Started: Friday Night Lights, BSG Season 3 Possibles: Oz, Prison Break, Lost Season 2, Rome season 2
Flicks: The Mist - scared the heck out of me. And the ending? Oy. Death At a Funeral - hi-larious Darjeeling Limited - um, what?
